right now it is down by 34 points. go live to the new york stock exchange in just a few minutes. 30 years, 30 million funerals. now there is new hope. it is world aids day. everyone from u.s. presidents to rock super stars, they are talking about the ongoing fight to end this epidemic. >> make no mistake, we are going to win this fight. the fight's not over, not by a long shot. the rate of new infections may be going down elsewhere, but it's not going down here in america. the infection rate here has been holding steady for over a decade. >> so what is next for the battle against aids? we'll take a look at the latest medical advancements. i'm going to talk to bono about the possibility of a generation without aids within three years. that interview's coming up in the next hour of newsroom. the lawyer for jerry sandusky, the former penn state defensive coach says the time may come when his client has to think about a plea deal. that's right, the lawyer says that a plea could happen if more people come forward claiming that sandusky molested them. he told cnn contributor sarah began number that such a scenario could make this case an uphill battle. >> reporter: what is the point where you say should we talk about a plea deal? are you having those conversations? >> no, we haven't. as a matter of fact you know from your experience, sarah, that people who maintain their innocence sometimes plead guilty because of the overwhelming evidence against them. there are many people who have gone to trial who were convicted of very serious crimes, including homicides, and executed and it later turned out that they were innocent. there's a lot of reasons why people decide to do certain things, but at this point jerry has maintained his innocence in regard to the allegations he knows about. penn state students are voicing their concerns about the scandal that has engulfed the campus. they got to ask questions at a town hall last night with the university's leaders. >> sandusky was part of the penn state family. we all are, and i feel shame. >> jerry sandusky's preliminary hearing is set for december 13th. at least one of the alleged victims will have to testify. a month before american troops pull out of iraq they're being honored for their service and sacrifices over the last 8.5 years. vice president joe biden and iraqi prime minister paid tribute to troops from both countries at a ceremony in baghdad. it took place at saddam hussein's palace. 11,000 american troops are still in iraq. most will be gone by the end of the year. in afghanistan, an update on a case that has sparked an international outcry, outrage if you will. president karzai says a woman in prison for being raped can go home. or she can stay in prison for her safety. she was sentenced for 12 years for adultry after she report that had a relative raped her. she is now raising her daughter behind bars. afghanistan's justice minister is supposed to meet with the woman and her attacker to find out if she'll agree to marry him. evangelist billy graham is in a hospital in north carolina. doctors are checking him for signs of pneumonia. he was admitted yesterday. graham turned 93 last month. he has counselled presidents from harry truman to barak obama. lots of kids in san francisco. they're going to open up the mcdonald's happy meals today. what will happen? they might not be all that happy. starting today the city is banning toys in the kids' meals that don't meet certain nutritional guidelines. mcdonald's has now found a loophole. parents can ask for a toy to be included for a dime. we'll see how that goes. you might not think that the european debt crisis has much to do with your finances, but it actually affects whether american companies have money to hire you, whether your small business can get a loan, and what happens with the stock market and your retirement investments. yesterday's huge rally, we're following the latest developments in europe. i want to bring in richard quest and alison kosik. richard, start with you. yesterday, explain this. we saw the markets soar after the fed and central banks in europe acted together to keep this money flowing. some folks are saying it's just a band aid. what are the long-term solutions? >> don't think of it as a band aid. think of it more as being oil and grease to lubricate the wheels and the sprockets and spokes. the u.s. had some very good employment numbers yesterday. today there are extremely good manufacturing numbers, construction numbers. alison will go through those in a moment. look, you and i have it right this time. i said it an inch thick, a mile wide, it's evaporated already. the reason is because nothing has fundamentally changed, at least on this side of the atlantic. until we get to december 9th, next week, nine days before they have to decide what they're going to do about the euro, suzanne. >> so what do we know about the future of the euro? nothing yet? >> we know that they have to decide how they are going to bring in those countries like italy, greece, those that are in trouble, those that have been bailed out already. we know they have to decide will they let the ecb, european equivalent of the fed, will they let it become much more aggressive in dealing with this problem. we know they have to start rebuilding the house. unification. they have to make a united europe for economies. that is the agenda. i've rattled it off in 40 seconds. we might as well be on the moon because some of the parties are so far apart on the differences in political troubles are so deep that i promise you, fasten your seat belts for the next nine days. this is going to get bumpy. >> we'll fasten our seat belts. go to alison next. we saw the stocks, they shot up 4% across the board yesterday? >> yes. >> after some of the rallies there are some big falls as well. what is happening today? >> exactly. you make a good point there, suzanne. it's good that we're not seeing a selloff today. the dow down only about 25 points. a lot of people down here at the new york stock exchange were all joking around, all these gains from yesterday will be gone tomorrow. clearly we're not seeing all those gains gone because that is something that you often see after a huge run up in stocks where the dow rose almost 500 points. what it shows is wall street likes the support that the central banks are offering and what it shows is that there's more confidence that the plan could actually work in the short term. as richard talked about, this crisis in europe, it's far from over. in fact, we're getting more signs that it's spreading. hitting china. manufacturing in china hit a 2.5 year low. europe's problems hitting china because it's one of china's biggest trading partners. at this point wall street still kind of clinging to that relief rally. we're seeing losses today on the hopes that this will buy europe some time to get its house in order. >> alison, richard, thank you. here's a rundown of stories we're covering. american troops are packing up, paying tribute in iraq. the possibility of a plea deal in the scandal surrounding penn state. a sheriff of the year ends up in the slammer. awkward, get this, his name is on the jail. china is building a tunnel so long it would stretch from miami to seattle. nyquil: you know i relieve coughs, sneezing, fevers? 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[♪...] >> announcer: now get a $250 airfare credit, plus save up to 65%. call 1-800-sandals. certain restrictions apply. today a tribute for american and iraqi troops. they're being honored for helping move iraq from dictatorship to an aspiring democracy. our cnn's martin savage is live at the iraqi capitol. tell us about the ceremony in baghdad. this comes a month before all american troops are supposed to leave. >> reporter: right. this is really probably the beginning of a number of ceremonies that are going to take place, all of them significant, all important marking the drawdown of u.s. forces and the end of nine years of war. what was unique about this one is it was jointly held by both the iraqi government and the u.s. military. it was designed to be that way to salute not only the u.s. forces, those that have made the ultimate sacrifice and died here, but those who have committed their lives to being and serving here and the iraqis as well. you had both representatives in government. you had the prime minister of iraq, the vice president, joe biden, and they all had a common theme. that was this, that this, of course, is the end of the military presence for the united states but it is by no means the end of the relationship. in fact, it's a new chapter. new beginning. that was a common theme you heard. the u.s. will continue to be very present, very strong here in iraq and the iraqi government would like it that way. >> martin, how confident are they? i know this is somewhat of a tribute, but how confident are they that once american troops leave iraq that there will be stability? that they'll be able to take care of their own security and move forward for a democratic government? >> reporter: there is a great deal of concern. if you talk to people on the street, that is probably the number one fear that they have, that the united states, of course, many are happy to see the occupying force, u.s. presence off the streets, but they do worry that without that security of having the u.s. there as a moderator here, there could be problems. with the revival of sectarian violence, with the revival of ethnic divides that exist in this country, and some infiltration coming from iran. so that is the real concern, that when you talk to people, they fear that without the united states here millitarlly, you could begin to see this nation come unglued. that's why again in the speeches that were made, it was talking about this is a great day for all iraqis, regardless of what faith or ethnicity. >> we will pay close attention and watch what happens in iraq once those american troops leave. thank you very much. time to go cross-country. want you to watch closely. a michigan state cheerleader takes a hard tumble. hits the floor with her face. the accident happened during last night's game against florida state. reports say that doctors have ruled out any serious head or neck injuries. now the cheerleader is 20-year-old junior taylor young. she is expected to leave the hospital today. former colorado law man, 2001 national sheriff of the year, right, ironically jailed today accused of trading meth for sex. he was the sheriff until 2002. he was locked up at the jail that bears his name. santa ana winds, howling like a hurricane. whipping across southern california today. one gust hit 97 miles an hour. take a look at those pictures. winds brought down trees, cut power to parts of l.a. international airport for a time. air traffic controllers had to divert flights to other airports. all right. what would bring three presidents and a rock star together? it's a big message. when you have tough pain, do you want fast relief? try bayer advanced aspirin. it's not the bayer aspirin you know. it's different. first, it's been re-engineered with micro-particles. second, it enters the bloodstream fast, and rushes relief to the site of your tough pain. the best part? it's proven to relieve pain twice as fast as before. bayer advanced aspirin. test how fast it works for you. love it, or get your money back. take a quick look at the markets here. the dow jones now down by 50 points or so. we'll keep watching that. bring that to you live. we see now the debt cries sies in europe can affect the stock market, retirement and other investments. it can affect jobs and businesses. what exactly are central banks here and europe doing to deal with the crisis? christine romans will break that down for us. >> reporter: what are the world central banks doing? it's complicated. really complicated. they're doing what politicians can't or won't do. they're making sure that there's money flowing between europe's banks. they're lowering prices on dollar liquidity swaps. what's a swap? a swap is when the fed provides dollars to a foreign central bank and then gets foreign currency in return. those swaps and arrangements like them are the lifeblood of short-term operations for banks. why now? because those swaps between the banks were getting more expensive. a credit freeze was looking more and more likely. since may the cost for european banks to borrow dollars from our european banks has been skyrocketing. it's been more expensive to get access to dollar funding. it's now at levels since late 2008. it's causing concerns in global markets. we remember after lehman brothers collapsed. a credit freeze that closed factories, killed business and wiped out millions of jobs around the world. so the federal reserve here in the u.s., the central banks of england, japan, switzerland and canada, they want to keep the money flowing so that households can borrow, companies can pay their bills, and you can get paid at work. another player in here in a separate move was china. china loosened bank rules there to keep money flowing as well at about the same time the ecb, fed, all the central banks around the world announced their move. people are wondering if this is a worldwide coordinated effort to keep europe afloat. this is good news. a positive action in a still pretty negative and dangerous situation in the credit markets. the underlying problems are still there, make no mistake. those problems are an escalating debt crisis in europe. that threatens to tear apart the eurozone. europe is still on the brink. there's pretty much very little time to fix it before borrowing costs rise more, the credit markets potentially lock up. then you'd have stock markets buckling and companies couldn't get funding to do anything. so the world economy certainly been a big story this year. 2011 has been a year of nonstop breaking news. cnn has covered all of it. go to cnn.com/topstories to cast your vote for the top ten stories of 2011. then join us on december 30th. find out whether your picks made the final cut. we'll unveil the top ten stories of the year. not just a rock star. he's an activist leading a fight against aids. i'll talk to bono live about his one campaign and what it's going to take to make hiv/aids history. ♪ i spend long hours with her checking her heart rate, administering h medication, and just making her comfortable. one night britta told me about a tradition in denmark, "when a person dies," she said, "someone must open the window so the soul can depart." i smiled and squeezed her hand. 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[ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. here's a look at what's ahead on the rundown. next, three presidents and one of the biggest rock stars in the world. u2's bono. i'm going to be talking to bono. then the possibility of a plea deal in the scandal surrounding penn state. later, a new worry for the pentagon. tunnels, very long secret tunnels. three decades ago it was a death sentence, but now there is new hope and a new mission to create an aids free generation by the year 2015. that is the goal of bono and his one campaign. they are pushing that on world aids day. elizabeth cohen is joining us to talk about the fight against aids. a lot of people think, what's new here. we know all there is to know about this disease. are there new treatments? are there new ways of actually detecting this disease? >> what's interesting and actually perhaps a bit sad, too, is that there aren't new ways. the old ways, old 1996 ways, the drugs, actually work very well. the problem is is that they have not controlled hiv as much as we had hoped back in 1996 when the drugs came out. there was this great hope we were going to see the beginning of the end of hiv. >> sure. >> there was a report out from the cdc that says we're not seeing that as we would hope, even in this country where you'd think we have plenty of resources. >> what does that mean? this aids-free generation in three years, what are they talking bg? what kind of goal is that. >> we heard bono talking about that at that conference that was moderated by my friend sanjay gupta. what he's saying is let's try to see the beginning of the end of aids in 2015. let's start by stopping maternal to child transmission of hiv. suzanne, i've talked to so many public health folks who are so frustrated by. this we know how to stop hiv from being transmitted from a mother to her baby when she's pregnant. what that means, that the mom needs to go on these drugs. after the baby is born, she should not breast feed. it hasn't stopped because we don't have enough access to these drugs. there aren't enough moms with enough access. also these breast feeding messages have not gotten out. >> that's a very ambitious goal when you think about it, to try to accomplish that in three years. >> it is an ambitious goal, but if you start there, if you start with let's focus in on those moms, make sure that those moms are taking these drugs and make sure that they don't breast feed, that's a great start. then would you have a generation of kids born without hiv. then you need to make sure they don't contract hiv as they get older. >> we know this is a worldwide problem. give us a sense in the united states, what is the threat of aids, hiv now. >> 15 years ago the hope was it wouldn't be much of a threa